Journey to the East
by FideliusXIII
Summary: It's been three years since the citizens of Iron Town started work on rebuilding their lives. Ashitaka spends as much time with San as he can in the forest while helping the survivors rebuild. Oftentimes, his thoughts stray to the village of the Emishi, where he grew up. With San's blessing, he leaves the forest and the people of Iron Town and sets out on the journey back east.
1. The Place Where He Grew Up

**A/N: So, I was in the middle of writing a prelude for **_**Howl's Moving Castle**_**, but the story lost a lot of steam inside my head, and now it'll be on hiatus while I write something that is a little bit more fleshed out, namely this story. I hope you guys enjoy it :)**

Chapter 1

He was riding out amongst endless plains of green landscape. There wasn't another soul in sight as far as the eye could see. Yakul's long swift strides carried them at a bristling pace. The wind in his hair and the sun on his face felt invigorating. He hadn't felt this light and free in a long time. Free to just ride with no cares or worries, heading for nowhere in particular. It was an intoxicating feeling.

Off on the horizon, the silhouette of a single watchtower grew out of the backdrop of fields. A huge smile burst onto Ashitaka's face as he let go of Yakul's reins and stood up in his saddle. "Jii-san!" he shouted into the oncoming wind, waving his arm in greeting at the ever-vigilant sentinel who practically lived up in that watchtower. "Jii-san! I'm back!" he called out with laughter in his voice. The old man leaned out over the railing of his watchtower and waved back at Ashitaka, a wide toothless grin plastered on his old wrinkled face. "Our prince has returned!" hollered the old watchman so the entire village would hear. "Our prince has returned!"

Ashitaka and Yakul sped past the tower towards the village of the Emishi. In seconds, he was in the middle of the village's central square, with familiar faces all around him, faces he would never forget, faces of those whom he had grown up with. They surrounded Ashitaka as he descended from Yakul, their hands reaching out to touch him, to shake his hand in greeting or ruffle his hair as they would a long-lost brother or son. "Our prince has returned!" they shouted in unison, with joy in their voices and laughter on their faces.

From the stairs that led to the Oracle's temple, the wise old woman descended, her face somehow maintaining its trademark solemnity despite her smiling fondly at her young prince. The crowd parted for her as she made her way through the throng of happy villagers and took Ashitaka's hands in her own. "Prince Ashitaka, it pleases this old woman's heart to see you healthy and safely returned to us," she said, her voice husky with age. Ashitaka returned the Oracle's smile.

"It feels great to be back," he responded, as tears began to well up in his eyes, he pulled the old woman into a warm embrace and buried his face in her shoulder. She smelled sweetly of incense and smoke, a smell he recalled with fond memories of his childhood, when she would teach him his lessons on how to read the leaves of plants and tell what the stones were saying. It had all seemed so very long ago now.

"Ashitaka," came a voice that cut through all the joyous clamor of the villagers. Ashitaka looked up, searching for the source of the voice. There, under a sakura tree away from the crowd, stood Kaya. His three-year absence had done little to distort his memories of his one-time fiancé. She looked almost exactly the same as she had since he left the village, except for the fact that there was a small boy standing next to her, grasping her hand as tightly as a child would grasp his mother. Kaya's belly was also quite swollen; she'd be due for another child in a matter of weeks.

Ashitaka left the Oracle's embrace and strode over to Kaya and her son. His face was alight with happiness. "Kaya, it's good to see you," he said, pulling her into a warm hug that she returned in kind with her free arm. "It seems like you're the only person who has changed at all while I was away," he observed, acknowledging the small boy who looked up at him with wide, curious eyes.

Kaya laughed. "I can see how it seems that way to you, Ashitaka," she replied. "This little guy here is Tatsuo, after his father," she introduced.

Ashitaka knelt down to the boy's height, causing the little boy to withdraw behind his mother.

Kaya laughed again. "It's ok Tatsuo. This is Ashitaka. He and I grew up together and have been friends for a long time. He's been gone for three years, but he's finally returned to us," she said soothingly, trying to draw the boy out of his shell.

"It's nice to meet you Tatsuo-kun," Ashitaka said softly, reaching out his hand to the little boy. Tatsuo peeked out from behind his mother slightly, and then reached for Ashitaka's hand. The young man smiled at the boy, and stayed there, rooted to the spot, just holding the boy's hand in his. After a minute, Ashitaka broke the connection and stood up, but young Tatsuo seemed to trust him now and no longer hid behind his mother.

"I'm really happy for you Kaya," beamed Ashitaka. Seeing his childhood friend as a mother, with her own family to care for and feed filled his heart with joy. His ex-fiancé had left the past behind her and was moving on with her life, just like he was.

She sent a smirk his way. "What about you, Ashitaka? I was sure that if you ever returned it'd be with a beautiful wife on your arm," she ribbed him on. He didn't bite at her jest; merely smiled in response.

"There is someone," he replied. "But I didn't bring her back here. She doesn't really do well with company."

Kaya raised an eyebrow questioningly, but Ashitaka made no attempt at a response to her implied questions. His mind had drifted off to thoughts of San...

Ashitaka opened his eyes. There, sleeping peacefully next to him on a bed of dried leaves, was San. He sat up in his own bed of leaves, quietly enough to not stir San. Goro, who was sleeping next to her on her other side, opened his large golden eyes and raised his head to stare at Ashitaka as he got up and padded his way to the entrance of the cave.

_**Princess Mononoke**_** belongs to Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki. I don't own any of the characters in this story. This is pretty much a first draft, so comments, critiques, and suggestions are always welcome. I'll probably come back and do some revision work once I have more chapters up. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Stargazing

**A/N: I can promise you all right now that I probably will never again upload more than one chapter over the course of a day, but this chapter got itself written pretty quickly. I haven't had anyone look over it yet, but again, this is a first draft of this story. I'll come back and do some revisions once more chapters are up. **

Chapter 2

A primal howling cut through the silence of the forest as Ashitaka walked out into the night air. He sat down at the mouth of the cave and stared up at the twinkling stars hanging low in the nighttime sky. Horo must have caught his dinner and would be bringing back a large carcass of meat within the hour to share with the rest of Moro's tribe. San's two wolf brothers would never bring themselves to consider the young Emishi prince a member of their ragtag clan, but he was nevertheless one of the few humans they didn't attack on sight.

Ashitaka stayed rooted to his spot at the entrance to the cave where he, San, and the two wolves, Horo and Goro, had been seeking shelter in for the night. He acknowledged Horo with a faint nod when the giant wolf materialized out of the trees with a fresh deer cadaver in between its jaws. The young man continued turning over his dream in his head. He thought of Jii-san, and how he had saved the old man from the collapse of his watchtower. He thought of the oracle, whom he thought of as a grandmother, old, sweet, and very dear to his heart. He thought of Kaya, the girl with whom he had been betrothed to marry, until he had been cursed by Nago and forced to leave.

Where the walled fortress of Iron Town had once previously stood, there was now a fledgling but prosperous village that had been dubbed Eboshi, in reverence for the village's headstrong and confident feminist leader. Losing an arm had done little to temper Lady Eboshi's boundless ambition, though she regarded the forest and its well-being with a hard-edged respect now. Since Eboshi had a smaller population to support compared to Iron Town, the people of the village had turned to firearms manufacturing as their primary source of revenue. Under Lady Eboshi's leadership, every tree that was felled was replaced with a young sapling, and iron ore was now carted to the village from a distant mine. As a result, the forests surrounding Eboshi flourished unhindered.

Ashitaka had offered his assistance and labor in the initial rebuilding of the town and had spent much time there getting to know the citizens that now called it home. He had witnessed the birth of Toki's and Kouroku's baby son and had helped take care of Lady Eboshi as she was recovering from her wound. For all his efforts, Ashitaka was now one of Lady Eboshi's most trusted confidants; she afforded him as much respect as any of the village's women. The village and its people were largely back on their feet now after years of persistence and hard work. Ashitaka's days were largely filled with meetings with Lady Eboshi and the town's other leaders, lending a hand with construction of a stretch of wall or someone's house, or helping individual villagers settle disputes amongst each other as a mediator. He was kept constantly busy, but this fact just made him relish the time he spent in the forest all the more. The tranquil forest, with the singing of birds, the rustling of trees, and the rattling of the kodama spirits, helped to calm his encumbered mind and body.

San didn't always join him in the forest. Oftentimes she was off with her wolf brothers convening with other forest spirits, for reasons Ashitaka could only begin to comprehend. She had tried to relate to him once about all the matters of the forest, the various scales of power that were constantly shifting one way or another between different spirit tribes. Recently, it seemed, with the death of both Ottoku and Moro, Ruijinen's tribe of apes had been growing in territory and numbers. San apparently spent much of her time away dealing with the aged ape leader, judging from the tidbits of information that she relayed to Ashitaka. It all sounded surprisingly political to the young man, who was reminded of the council sessions he had attended back in his village, discussing matters of agriculture and infrastructure, and settling disputes amongst the villagers whenever necessary with the elder members of the Emishi council. He was always happy to help out his fellow villagers, in any way he could, whether by attending meeting and letting his opinion be known or by rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands dirty. Nevertheless, at his core, Ashitaka was a man of action who preferred to seize the initiative rather than sit around debating for hours on end.

Images of his dream continued to force their way into the forefront of his thoughts. Despite the fact that he hadn't gone back at all since he had been wounded by the rampaging demon Nago, his memories of his childhood and the Emishi village had never faded or become distorted in his mind since he left. Surely the people in the village of the Emishi weren't as well off as they had been in his dream. Such delusions were best left unfulfilled. The only bit of his dream that seemed plausible to him was Kaya finding a new husband and starting a family while he was gone. He sincerely hoped that she had gotten on with her life and moved on, because he surely had. In his mind, he began to wonder about how everyone back in Emishi village was faring, whether they were even still alive. A sudden longing gripped his heart; he wanted to find out the fate that had befallen his village.

There was a silent _pit-pat_ of bare feet on stone behind Ashitaka, but his gaze didn't waver from the night sky. "What's the matter Ashitaka? Having trouble sleeping?" asked San, her voice heavy with sleep. She sat down next to him, noticing his furrowed brow and distant gaze. "What is it you're thinking so hard about?" she added.

"I'm thinking about my village. The place where I grew up. About all the people I left behind, my family, my friends," Ashitaka replied. "I never told you about who gave me this dagger," he continued. San's eyes hardened slightly, sensing that he was about to tell her something she wouldn't like hearing. Her fingers rose to the crystal that hung beside her necklace of wolf fangs around her neck.

"Back in my village, far to the east, I was the prince of my people, the Emishi. I was raised with the expectation that I would one day come to lead them out of the darkness, for we have been slowly dying for the past five hundred years, rotting away until we were only dust left to the mercy of the winds." Ashitaka paused before continuing, "I had a fiancé too, Kaya." San made no visible reaction to this statement, though Ashitaka had expected her to. Sometimes it was just so easy to forget that she had been raised in a totally different environment, one that was completely alien to humans. Oftentimes she didn't understand simple human gestures and was oblivious when it came to common customs and mannerisms. Ashitaka continued with his telling.

"The two of us were expected to one day marry and bear children, but I forsook my title of prince and all that came along with it when I left my village in search of the source of Nago's hatred and rage. Kaya gave me the dagger you now wear around your neck to me the night I left, as a token of remembrance. She knew our marriage contract had been broken, that there was a good chance that I'd never see her again, that I'd never return to our village. I believed that myself," Ashitaka's gaze wavered. To San, it looked like he was ashamed of the events that had transpired and which had forced the scruffy young man before her to abandon his people and travel westward in the first place.

There followed a lingering pause before San spoke, "I don't think there was any other way things could have turned out. In that moment of battle, you only had two options: turn to fight the demon yourself so your people could get away, or keep running and put them into harm's way." She wasn't looking at him. Rather, her gaze lingered on the distant nighttime landscape of treetops. Her brow was furrowed though, and Ashitaka could tell that this wasn't easy for her, to connect on a human level. _She's learning_, he thought, smiling to himself. He took her hand in his.

"I miss them a lot," he said, his voice tinged with sadness. "I'm no longer their prince, but that doesn't change the fact that they're still my family." San looked at the young man before her, and thought about when Moro had died, how lost and confused she had been for weeks afterward. _He's been feeling the same way ever since he left them, _she realized. In that moment of rare human connection, she knew what he wanted, and she accepted it.

"You should go to them," she whispered.

She noticed his eyebrows raise and his eyes widen, at least for a brief moment, before his face returned to normal. Then he smiled at her.

"I'll leave first thing in the morning," he replied. She smiled back at him, her forehead leaning towards his. Their words were sealed with a kiss under the starlight.

_**Princess Mononoke**_** is the property of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki. I do not own any of the characters in this story. Thanks to Swansae515 for her significant contributions and critiques to this particular chapter as well as giving me a lot to think about with regards to future chapters. Please tell me what you guys think!**


	3. San

**A/N: Hey everyone, sorry it took me so long to post this chapter, but San is a very difficult character to write for and I really wanted my interpretation of her to stay true to her character as we see her in the movie. I hope you guys enjoy it!**

Chapter 3

Early morning swaths of golden sunlight poked through the canopy of trees as San stirred in her sleep. The warmth felt nice on her cheeks. Her eyes popped open, slightly confused at how bright it was. Damnit, she'd overslept again! This would be the third time now that she'd ever gotten up after the sun had risen. She remembered falling asleep in Ashitaka's arms at the mouth of the cave but now she'd woken up late because she'd been too comfortable. A part of her hated herself for feeling like this around Ashitaka. _The wolf inside me_.

For most of her life, the wolf inside her was all she ever knew. 'You're no wolf,' the boars would tell her. 'You're a human,' the apes tried to convince her.

_Maybe, but I have the soul of a wolf, and that's what counts!_ Her mother had reinforced this point until San firmly believed it. She took it into her entire being, made it into who she was. The boars and the apes eventually stopped trying to convince her otherwise and regarded her as another member of Moro's tiny clan. But then _he_ showed up, and from that point on her life would never be the same.

At first, she had resisted his trying to teach her human mannerisms and shunned his usage of human weapons. Using a bow and arrow to hunt game from a distance still seemed to her an entirely cowardly concept. Every living creature deserved an honorable death, Moro had taught her, and so San owed it to them to grant them a clean and swift death by her own hands. But what bothered San the most was the fact that Ashitaka cleaned himself at least twice a week. How excessive! Washing the dirt and debris that was left behind on one's body by the forest served to remove one's ties with nature. Such habits of his had really irked her at first.

Due to the events surrounding the destruction of Iron Town, San had come to trust Ashitaka, and to lust after him as only a wild animal could. As she spent more time with him, though, he slowly began to introduce her to the human concept of love. She came to realize that her familial concept of love merely scratched the surface. The gestures and actions that Ashitaka bestowed upon her sang to a deeper, even more fundamental part of her soul that she had never known existed before, one that defied her wild animal psyche.

Her fingers flew to the inky black dagger that constantly sat on her collarbone. It was a constant reminder of the influence that Ashitaka exerted over her, of how much she had changed from who she was before she had ever made contact with him. She could tell that her wild animalistic side was slowly eroding away due to his presence. The way he acted, his use of gestures, and his mannerisms, they all spoke of a world in which she had never known before, a world that she had never wanted to be a part of.

She still had no love for humans. After all, both the Forest Spirit and Moro were gone thanks to them. And yet, at the same time, she found herself wanting to understand Ashitaka, to know him at a deeper level. Oftentimes, during their interactions with each other, she could feel a barrier between them that seemed almost tangible to her. From what she could observe of his facial expressions and hear from the softness of his voice, he was never bothered by her lack of grace, her bluntness, or her indomitable spirit. On the contrary, Ashitaka was endlessly patient and accommodating with her. He appreciated her efforts when he could tell she was trying to wrap her head around a concept that was foreign to her or she attempted to apply something she'd picked up from him.

There were times when she hurt him, when her animal side got the better of her and she would lash out at him. Her fingers tightened around the crystal dagger. She was reminded of the time she had stabbed him with it, right before she gave in to his warm embrace. It would have been a grave wound had Ashitaka's body not been almost fully possessed by the demon curse that had afflicted him. Since then, there had been similar occurrences. Nothing as grievous as the wound she had inflicted upon him the first time it had happened, but there were some rather ugly bruises and half-healed gashes upon his person that had been her doing. Nevertheless, Ashitaka never backed down as a result of her aggressive behavior.

As the two of them became closer, San grew to realize the consequences of her actions. She was hurting Ashitaka, the one person in the entire world who loved her, who didn't wish for her to be anything more than what she was; a strange combination of human and wolf. Indeed, the better she understood Ashitaka, she came to understand things about herself as well, that she was entirely capable of feeling human emotions like empathy, compassion, trust, and affection. What's more, it felt _right_ to her.

A single sparkling tear fell from her face onto the forest floor. _Huh?_ Reaching for her face, she felt moist tears trickling from her eyes. _I'm… crying?_ And that was when the full force of the conflict brewing within her gushed to the surface, and she was suddenly overwhelmed with a torrent of emotions. San fell to her knees in submission as the tears now fell faster, unrestrained, as questions thundered through her head. _Who am I? _What _am I?_ She no longer had a concrete answer to such questions anymore. What's more, possessing such feelings of love and affection for Ashitaka, a human of all things, was surely a betrayal of the love and life that Moro had given to her. Her, Moro's one and only ugly daughter. The trees of the forest echoed her tortured cries and sobs as the kodama spirits watched San's trembling form.

_**Princess Mononoke**_** belongs to Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki. I own none of the characters in this story. This is pretty much a first draft, so comments, critiques, and suggestions are always welcome. I'll probably come back and do some revision work once I have more chapters up. Thanks for reading!**


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